THE POWER OF UNITY

“Come, let us build us a city and a tower whose top reaches into the sky, and let us make a name for ourselves.” So said the people who built a great city and a massive tower on the plains of Shinar, later called Babel (Genesis 6:4).

God created man to be creative, so imagination and initiative were not the problem here. The problem was that their great plans were all about their own glory, and because they didn’t want to obey God’s command to go into all the world. They wanted to stay together, patting themselves on their collective backs for their great achievements.

But these people had discovered an important principle – the principle of unity.

“And the Lord said, Behold, they are one people and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do, and now nothing they have imagined they can do will be impossible for them (Genesis 11:6 – Amplified version).”

Virtually unlimited potential awaits any group of people who share a common purpose and a united way of speaking.

The story of Babel always gets me thinking about the disciples of Jesus on the Day of Pentecost. They were “all with one accord in one place (Acts 2:1).” Totally united as one. The Holy Spirit came upon them, with fire and with strange new tongues, with the result that they were equipped to go into all the world with the Gospel.

The disciples had the same sort of unity, but they were living for the glory of God, not the glory of man. They did what the men of Babel were unwilling to do and, eventually, went into all the world as Spirit-filled, tongues-speaking missionaries.

Of course, the person who says: “I’m an individual, I’ll do whatever I please” is acting in the opposite spirit. Whether in church or in society as a whole, God calls for unity in obedience to His commands. Rampant individualism works against the collective progress of any group. One accord unity, on the other hand, allows for great strides toward truly great achievements.